This week in conjunction with our friends at the Rural Support Trust, I caught up with farmer Karl Dean to get his views and the current state of play in the dairy sector. You can listen to the discussion in the link below.
Dairy NZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle said recently they have working hard to make sure the Government understands the huge pressure farmers are under, due to workforce shortages.
The organisation has pushed for 1500 international dairy workers into the country in time for the 2022 dairy season on 1 June.
“We made it clear to Government that the 300 dairy border class exception workers previously approved was nowhere near enough to meet the demands on-farm and reduce the current high levels of farmer stress,” says Dr Mackle.
“The Government’s decision to increase the number of international workers by 500 is a step in the right direction to reduce the pressure. We will continue to advocate for more to be allowed into New Zealand, to help address the significant staff shortage.”
The dairy sector is estimated to have a shortage of 4000 workers. Record low unemployment, combined with the prolonged border closure, have contributed to the shortage of workers.
As a final thought today, rhe 800 workers now allowed through the gate needed to happen much earlier. You have to at times question how on earth we end up with a situation like this. The pressure these shortages put on to farmers is immense.
Where are the incentives for the unemployed? There are jobs on farms in their droves, full training provided, entry level roles with, in many cases accommodation included. The employer can only do some much to attract workers.
Angus Kebbell is the Producer at Tailwind Media. You can contact him here.
8 Comments
Before the trolls get on here ranting about low pay and poor working conditions on farm. Our personal experience over the past couple of months is seeing able bodied locals on unemployment benefit -because they are "tired" while we run short staffed. And we are paying around $30 an hour for 2 years experience and up to $40 an hour with responsibility. We just have to include "regular drug testing' to guarantee no applicants.
There are no workers to attract
Its going to get a lot worse in the next 15 - 20 years as the population ages - rural areas are going to see a 15 - 30% decline in working age populations
Every developed country in the world has the same problem
A new world is emerging as population growth slows and populations age rapidly.
Europe will have 30 million less working age people in 30 years than today - by 2030 it is predicted over 300,000 ha of farm land will be retired or rewilded PER ANNUM as there are no people to work it in Europe alone
Immigration will not solve the problem - we need to adapt and change
Refer to Jack L's comment. It not exclusive to NZ - its a global ag problem - the pandemic caused the cessation of the seasonal ag workforce and NZ govt policies stopped those that could have come in to help, not being able to.
Wilco in another thread referred to the effect of putting 'regular drug testing' in an ad - no one applies. So yes some of the 100,000 may not be useless or lazy, but how many wouldn't pass a drug test?
There is always unemployed - in any population, on any topic, you will have a % that just cant do it for a number of reasons - I'm not going to judge anyone here. Below 4 - 5% unemployment you are at full employment.
With an ageing population its simple supply and demand - those younger who want to work have multiple choices - they can choose which job and location etc. If a boss is crap or pay is bad its not hard to upsticks and do better - here or overseas.
We also need to have more people to look after us oldies - health, care, house maintenance - jobs that we used to all do ourselves or didn't need done.
We have never faced a declining working age population so this is a new world for people - especially older people (generally in charge still) who had to fight tooth and nail to get any job as there was so much competition.
Nashing of teeth and wailing wont change anything - you need to plan for the future and don't rely on high labour input, low wage business - it simply wont survive. Our primary industries (Im in one as well) are going to all really struggle going forward unless we can mechanise, automate and pay much better.
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